Quilt Design by Porter – Letting P’s Creativity Run Wild

Can I brag about my kid for a minute?  He continues to amaze me as he wants to learn new skills.  Monday night I had been pressing some half square triangles (HSTs) that were created and leftover from my Pulse quilts.

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Each of those hearts had two big HSTs leftover.  I had been saving them for a charity quilt and decided to finally make something.  As I was pressing the HSTs came wanted to help.  EEEK!  An almost five year old use an iron??  Why not?  He knows it’s hot and will probably not burn himself.  At least I’m here to supervise.  This post on Scary Mommy was my inspiration to let him create.

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Well, he rocked it.  We pretended the iron was a train, going slowly over the track (seam), and small puffs of steam helped.  He was proud of himself and happy to help.  After the blocks were pressed I threw out the idea of laying out the quilt.  He was thrilled.

We sorted the blocks by colors right before dinner.  He scarfed down dinner and was ready to play soon after.   I helped him get started with the red blocks.  From there he took over.  The only help I offered was how to make the diamond of colors in the darker blue.

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Not sure who is better more helpful here??

 

Confession:  it was hard not to direct him or make suggestions.  There are a ton of things I would change in the overall top, but

I had to remind myself it’s about letting him create.  

 

Overall his design is great.  I had thought there were more blocks than what I had.  It’s a good baby quilt size.

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He’s doing his best Beastie Boys impression here.

We did come up four blocks short as we reached the end.  He told me the colors he wanted the new blocks to be and I dug into my charm scraps.  We had four blocks whipped up rather quickly.  I do wish we would have trimmed the blocks down to all be the same size, but there was no time.  We had to create.  Instead, mom had lots of pressing to do on the top.  Oh well!

Porter picked out the backing fabric last night.  It’s a pink, orange, and white print.  He wanted more purple, so that will probably be the binding.  Our plan is to quilt over the weekend.

If you’re a parent, have you let your kids help you sewing or quilt?  What did they like or dislike?  I can’t wait to hear what others do.  

sewing with kids, let kids create, sewing assistant, kids who quilt
He’s pretty happy with the results